Given that President Obama wants to cap the salaries of executive receiving federal monies (i.e., the TARP or "Bailout" funds) to a mere $500K, a number of people have raised concerns about whether that will cause people in the financial services to leave (possibly to do nothing until their expectations of adequate compensation are met). This brought was home, at least to me, when analyst Meredith Whitney was interviewed on the Bloomberg channel (yes, that Bloomberg) this morning. Quoting her:
|“No one goes into Wall Street to save the world,” Whitney |said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. |“Compensation is the motivating factor." ... |Failure to pay employees well would drive away “the best |and the brightest,” Whitney said. ” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7X.nROiVi1k Screw intrinsic motivation, that's for chumps and second-raters. The "Best and the Brightest" want the "BIG BUCKS". Or at least that's one message that seems to be sent. What will we do when the rats will only press the bar if the food pellets are really, really huge? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
